Leaders in Newark, N.J. took to the streets this week demanding that the Waterfront Commission, the New York Shipping Association and the International Longshoremen’s Association do more to remedy racial, gender and ethnic inequality in employment at the area ports.
Officials say the companies participate in evident discrimination practices in Newark and Elizabeth, N.J.
Newark Mayor Ras J. Baraka, members of the Newark Municipal Council, Deputy Mayor of Workforce Development and Employment Rahaman Muhammad, Manager of Port Activities for the City of Newark Al Turrick Kenney and several community partners, including the clergy, the Newark Branch of the NAACP, the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, the Newark Anti-Violence Coalition, YDI Youth Build and the People’s Organization for Progress, participated in the march.
“Port jobs have an enormous potential to boost the economies of Newark and Elizabeth, two cities struggling with high unemployment and underemployment,” Baraka said. “Port jobs can be an important source of well-paying middle class jobs. Yet, clearly, those hired to work at the Port are not representative of the diversity of the surrounding community.”
Baraka added that even though the port is located in one of the nation’s most diverse communities, the International Longshoremen’s Locals 1 and 1804-1 both have under less than 6 Black members, less than 13 percent Hispanic members and no women. Newark and Elizabeth have a combined Black and Latino population of 77 percent.
A 2015 report stated that of the 3,299 registered longshore workers at the Port, only 299 (6.3 percent) had Newark addresses and that of the 3,299 workers, 2,055 are white, 787 Black, 410 Hispanic, 17 Asian and 30 others. Only 302 were women. Most of the Black workers (523 of 787) come from the predominantly Black I.L.A. Local 1233.
“Economic violence is something we take just as serious as street violence,” said Zayid Muhammad, media advocate for the Newark Anti-Violence Coalition. “To be sure, if there was more meaningful work for Newark residents, there would be a lot less of this violence we are constantly battling.”
In March of this year, Baraka sent letters to both Vanita Gupta, head of the Civil Rights Division of the US Department of Justice, and US Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez, requesting that they thoroughly investigate the extent and causes of inequity in hiring for jobs at the Port of Newark and Elizabeth and “act to remedy severe racial, gender and ethnic inequality in employment at the Port and an apparent bias against the hiring of local residents.” He also asked the Attorney General to determine whether federal civil rights laws have been violated.
